A household appliance, such as a front-loading clothes washer or dryer, includes a housing having a door that provides access to a washing unit or drying unit in the interior of the appliance housing. For example, in a washer, the washing unit includes a tub having a cylindrical washing drum rotatably mounted inside the tub. In operation, clothes or laundry are inserted into the washer through the door and placed in the rotating washing drum inside the tub. The household appliance wets the laundry to be washed with washing liquid and mechanically moves the laundry to release contaminants from the laundry. A drive system rotates the washing drum inside the tub about an axis of the drum. A pump is coupled to a drain on the bottom of the tub for removing washing liquid from the tub.
In operation, small laundry items (e.g., baby socks, mittens, fluff, etc.) can get sucked into the pump during the drain cycle, thereby causing a blockage in the pump. In some conventional appliances, the user is not provided with any access to the pump, and therefore, a service technician must be called to clear the blockage in the pump, which increases operating costs to the user. It is desirable to provide the user with access to the pump such that the user can clear the pump blockage themselves, thereby reducing or avoiding service costs for common pump blockages.
In some conventional household appliances, the user access to the pump is provided, for example, by incorporating a small access door at the front of the washer, or by providing a kick panel coupled to the front panel of the appliance that can be removed to access the pump. Product Safety Certification Organizations, such as Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL), mandate that the user be prevented from touching any electrically live parts or rotating parts without the use of a tool. In order to comply with these requirements, many conventional appliances use secondary fixation devices for securing the access door or the kick panel to the front panel of the appliance. These secondary fixation devices, which commonly include threaded fasteners such as screws, bolts, etc., require the use of a tool (e.g., a screwdriver, hex wrench, socket, etc.) to remove the access door or kick panel.
In the conventional appliances having a small access door in the front panel, there is a problem in that the access door affects the aesthetic appearance of the appliance when viewed from the front, which generally is undesirable to the user. Moreover, the access door commonly is fixed using one or more threaded fasteners, such as screws, which are visible from the front and hence have a negative effect on the aesthetic appearance of the appliance.
In other conventional appliances, a kick panel may be provided. The kick panel can be configured to be removed to access the pump, parts, etc. Such conventional kick panels commonly are rigid metal kick panels secured by a plurality of threaded fasteners that must be removed and then reinstalled by the user after accessing the pump. In these devices, there commonly is a problem that the fixation devices, which commonly include threaded fasteners such as screws, bolts, etc., for securing the kick panel to the front panel of the appliance, are visible from the front of the appliance. This is particularly the case when the appliance is arranged in a stacked configuration and the location of the fixation devices is closer to the chest height or eye level of the user. Conventional designs have attempted to hide these fixation devices from being visible to the user, for example, by locating the screws under the lower edge of the kick panel. However, the known conventional solutions for concealing or hiding the fixation devices from view generally reduce or limit the accessibility to the fixation devices by the user, which results in additional time, effort, and difficulty to remove the kick panel. In many cases, it is necessary to tilt the household appliance backward in order to access the fixation devices. There is a problem in that it may not be possible for a user to tilt the appliance, for example, in built-in configurations, stacked configurations, etc. It also may be difficult for some users to provide enough force to tilt the weight of the appliance. These conventional solutions may lead to an increased risk of tipping of the appliance, damage to the appliance or adjacent appliances/fixtures, and/or injury to the user.
In some conventional devices, the kick panel may include a step portion formed, for example, at the lower front surface to provide access to the fixation devices, for example, using a screwdriver, hex wrench, socket, etc. without tilting. As a result, both the step portion and the screws are visible from the front of the appliance, each of which affects the aesthetic appearance of the appliance to the user.